• John Francis Flynn – I Would Not Live Always

    July 30, 2021 - By 

    While Ireland’s contemporary folk scene continues to go from strength to strength, London label Rough Trade must take some credit for bringing it to a wider audience beyond these shores. As well as releasing the past two Lankum albums on their main label, their burgeoning folk imprint River Lea has debuted with records by both Lisa O’Neill and Ye Vagabonds, and now brings us I Would Not Live Always, the debut from John Francis Flynn.  Flynn has been a longtime member of Dublin five piece Skipper’s Alley, with whom he’s already released two albums of traditional covers, but his more…

  • Arab Strap – As Days Get Dark

    March 29, 2021 - By 

    In this era of endless band reunions, it’s still easy to tell apart the cash ins from those that are meant to be. When Arab Strap’s Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton amicably went their separate ways in 2006 after six albums in ten years, it still felt somewhat premature. Their short run of reunion shows from 2016-17 were some of the best of their career, but the band was put back into hibernation as the pair resumed their individual projects, admirably turning down more big money offers and stating that the band would only continue if they could produce some…

  • A Chat with The Mary Wallopers

    March 17, 2021 - By 

    Dundalk brothers Charles and Andrew Hendy have been charming audiences in their guise as hip-hop duo TPM since 2015, with a run of hilarious but infectious singles about life on the dole, their love of curry sauce and their hatred of the national broadcaster. But their more recent reinvention as stout-swilling folk band The Mary Wallopers, with friend Seán McKenna in tow, came as something of a surprise. Armed with guitars, banjos and a seemingly bottomless well of traditional folk ballads, the trio have supported the likes of Lankum and Junior Brother, as well as playing their own riotous and…

  • Neil Brogan – Weird Year

    December 16, 2020 - By 

    It was only this summer that Belfast jangle pop trio Sea Pinks announced they were calling it quits after ten years, but frontman Neil Brogan has wasted no time in readying solo material, with debut Life Itself already appearing a mere month after his old band’s final EP Crocuses. Not that it should have come as any surprise. During their decade long run, Sea Pinks were always one of the most reliably prolific bands in the country, pumping out an impressive seven albums in that time on Brogan’s own CF Records, initially as the frontman’s bedroom recording project while drumming in…

  • Various Artists – A Litany of Failures Vol. III

    December 8, 2020 - By 

    All the way back in 2016, cassette label Little L Records put out a nice little four way split cassette featuring four of the best DIY bands from right across Ireland – Shrug Life and That Snaake from Dublin, Junk Drawer from Belfast and Oh Boland from Galway. Self-deprecatingly titled ‘A Litany of Failures’, what could have been a fairly low key release gained what felt like a higher level of importance thanks to a series of launch gigs in each band’s home city. Two years later, those involved decided to up the ante considerably – ‘A Litany of Failures…

  • Myles Manley – Cometh The Softies

    November 27, 2020 - By 

    Myles Manley’s new album has been a long time coming. After a series of EPs earlier in the decade, along with ironically titled compilation Greatest Hits 2012-13, the last few years have only seen occasional singles emerge from the hive, though his live shows have promised plenty, with a string of new songs and a sterling three piece band lineup completed by Chris Barry and Solamh Kelly – the former expertly juggling guitar, bass and keys, while the latter takes his place as one of the country’s most impressive drummers, full of jerky, jazz-inflected rhythms across a kit that even…

  • Osees – Protean Threat

    October 7, 2020 - By 

    Another year, another album, another confusing name change. After a flurry of name variations in their earliest years, John Dwyer and co. seemed to finally settle on Thee Oh Sees for nigh on a decade, releasing 12 albums under the monicker before suddenly deciding in 2017 that it must be shortened to simply Oh Sees. Along the way, a one-off return to the band’s original OCS moniker allowed Dwyer and former member Brigid Dawson to revisit the band’s quieter, folkier roots, but only served to confuse archivists further. Now, a further contraction sees them rebrand once more as Osees for…

  • Bill Callahan – Gold Record

    September 21, 2020 - By 

    Despite having an impressively prolific career behind him, after the long gap between Bill Callahan’s last two albums – 2013’s Dream River and 2019’s Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest – you’d be forgiven for not expecting a follow up any time soon. But the fact that the latter record was a 20-track double album should have been an ample warning that after taking some time away to get married and have a child, the songwriting floodgates had well and truly reopened. And so we find that, just a year on, we have Gold Record in our midst – his seventeenth…

  • Brigid Mae Power – Head Above the Water

    July 21, 2020 - By 

    Some artists seem to arrive fully formed with a perfect debut that captures the public’s attention, only for their profile to ebb away as future work fails to match an early promise. Others make a slow ascent, each record building on the one before while more ears prick up each time. Brigid Mae Power falls into the latter category. After self releasing some home recordings in the earlier part of the decade, the Galway native made her debut proper with her self-titled 2016 album on cult US folk label Tompkins Square to a positive reception. Her 2018 follow up, The…

  • Sir Bobby Jukebox – Friendship Gift

    June 23, 2020 - By 

    Until pretty recently, Bobby Aherne was one of the most prolific of Ireland’s DIY musicians. If releasing a steady stream of EPs and LPs through the 2010s with No Monster Club (and a few more as Dublin Duck Dispensary before that) wasn’t quite enough, Aherne also spent years as bassist for hire for friends like Paddy Hanna and Ginnels. After that, even found time to write a book (D’You Remember Yer Man?, about the eccentric local characters of Dublin) and co-write a musical loosely based on Jedward (Trial of the Centurys, described by the Irish Times as “adorably awful”). Although the…